


Meeting the Family

by jecooksubether



Series: Tigereans and Weres [13]
Category: Furry (Fandom), Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Gen, Original Fiction, POV First Person, Shapeshifting, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26417782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jecooksubether/pseuds/jecooksubether
Summary: Wherein the author's companions meet the author's family
Series: Tigereans and Weres [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914835





	Meeting the Family

**October 9th**

It was an early Saturday morning that found me driving the embassy’s used and heavily modified Jeep Liberty over to Mom’s house, with the Ambassador and Ch’Mrr in tow. I had dreaded this day for the past week, and finally worked up the courage to tell Mom I was bringing a new girlfriend over. While Ch’Mrr was not generally pleased to let me drive, we figured it was for the best for an incognito visit; I had the driver’s license, and while the truck did have official diplomatic plates, Ch’Mrr decided to let me drive. In any case, this was not technically an ‘official’ visit, but the Ambassador wanted to make a certain impression. She also wanted to meet the remainder of my family as well.

Ch’Mrr insisted that we all go armed, so they had both their ceremonial Srr’rath (a style of sword that resembles a yatagan) with them, as well as what Ch’Mrr stated was “a much more effective pest deterrent”. I had my usual carry rig with me, and it was a well-armed party that rolled up to her place that morning. As I parked in the driveway of the house, Ch’Mrr hopped out and did his scan for any threats, real or imagined. I was next out, and opened the door for the Ambassador, all the while keeping an eye out for anything out of place. My newly enhanced senses told me that she was opening the back door, that there were some jackrabbits hiding along the side near the back yard, and that the dog next door was hiding from the two giant felines and odd-smelling human that had just exited the vehicle. I led the two tigereans up to where mom was standing with the carport door (and her mouth) open. “Mom, this is Ch’Mrr and Ambassador Sh’Meral of the Sn’rrth clan of the Tigerean Empire. Ch’Mrr, Ambassador, this is [redacted], My mother.”

The Ambassador bowed lightly. “I am honored to meet you. May we come in?”

With a look at me from Mom that would have melted hull metal, we all trooped inside. As planned, I volunteered to get drinks, and let the three of them make small talk as I got water for the three of us, and topped off mom’s iced tea. I came back into the main room and sat on the floor whilst Sh’Meral (who had taken off the cloak and armor) recounted the carefully worded tale of how we met, interspersed with questions and answers from mom and the odd color commentary from myself. She gave them a short tour of the house, and while both were in separate restrooms dealing with nature’s call (mostly as planned), Mom took advantage to grill me over things. “This explains a few things I picked up from the phone call.”

I shrugged. “What, you wanted me to come right out with it? ‘Hi Mom, I’m dating an alien whose ship turned a small providence in buttganistahn into a parking lot.’ There. I see you are still standing, and haven’t died of a heart attack yet. Besides, I figured you might want to meet her and her security chief. I’ve gotten to know both of them very well over the last six months; they’re ‘good people’.”

She shrugged. “I still get the feeling that you are not telling me everything.”

I nodded. “I still have a few secrets.”

I heard the sound of water flowing as both emerged from the restrooms. {So, should we tell all?} I heard Sh’Meral’s telepathed question in my mind, and thought for a second. I replied back, [ _Might as well, I think she_ _’s ok with y’all as is._ ]

We all went back into the living room, and I sat down on the floor again. “I said I still had a few secrets. I’ve decided to let one more out of the bag.”

I willed the slow shift from my normal human form to a semi-hybrid form, which still allowed me to retain my clothing, although I did pop the Velcro seams to let my tail grow out. Instead of seeing Mom faint at her son shape-shifting into some oddity from a B-horror movie, I saw her shake her head slightly. I heard Ch’Mrr’s dry comment in my mind {looks like she’s on to you already. Smart lady.}

I turned and stuck my tongue out at him. Mom said “I was wondering if that was going to happen. I have some family history to reveal to you. Wait here for a minute.”

She got up and went into her room for a couple minutes, whilst I spoke to the two next to me in trrth. “What do you think? I already heard Ch’Mrr’s opinion.”

Sh’Meral chuffed in amusement. “I heard the same thing- Ch’Mrr was broadcasting to the two of us. I like her. Your mom is a very classy lady.”

Mom returned with a shoebox full of photos of a number of tigers and tiger-morphs, which looked very strange as they were all vintage 1920’s black and white or faded color. “Your grandfather on my family’s side was a were-tiger. It seems that it skips generations. We did not think that it was all gone, largely because your half brother didn’t turn over, nor did your cousin.”

I nodded with a twitching in my ears. “I think that also explains Uncle’s anti-feline streak as well?” Mom laughed.

We talked for another hour, including me popping into one of the back rooms to disrobe and drop to full-morph, which was an entertaining experience in and of itself. At the end of the hour, we made ready to head out. Before we left, Mom pulled me aside and said “When’s the marriage, or whatever they do?”

I still had my mouth open when Sh’Meral beat me to it. “About a month. We’ll send invitations when we formalize the date.”

I felt Ch’Mrr’s large paw on my shoulder, and his cheesy Russian accent kick in. “Come my brother. Let us terrorize this sporting goods store you promised to show us.”

At mom’s look, I shot back as we headed out the door and back out to the truck, “I’ll send you an email with what happens.”

**October 12th**

It was a clear Tuesday morning that found me boarding the tigerean shuttle _Varletha_ in full-morph form with a hastily and crudely made saddle bag harness containing a couple changes of clothing and laptop case with a couple prototype WorldNet adapters bundled inside. The Ambassador had mentioned to me on the way home from visiting mother’s house and the sporting goods store that she had a few visits to make to the other uplift groups back east, and see some of our cultural attractions. She wanted me to come with, and also wanted to visit what family I had left and introduce her to them. While I could have probably piloted the shuttle to my half-brother’s house myself, my grandmother’s was not so easy.

While I was making the phone call to mother to get said address, however, Sh’Meral broke in on the conversation and invited her to come along. Mom did try to help me out by insisting that she could not fly commercial due to the stuff she had to carry around, but Sh’Meral overrode that with “you will be traveling on our shuttlecraft with myself and my honor guard as an invited guest of the Ambassador herself- it won’t be a problem, and we will even pick you up at your house.”

Having settled that, I groaned and started booking the hotel rooms for the visits- At least Sh’Meral told me to use the Ambassador’s name and to get rooms for the entire group. It was also a good opportunity to test a side project that I had started using the information I had been granted access to for a true world-wide data network- I had just finished building the prototype, and needed to test how well it worked. This visit allowed the chance to down multiple birds with a single trip.

We gathered at the embassy where the shuttle had been parked, and we took off across the Valley to pick Mother up. We landed in an unused parking lot, and proceeded to hover over the roadway in the closest approximation of ‘driving’ that I had ever seen- Clearly, the pilot had some serious skill. As we pulled up to Mother’s house, we pulled up gently on the curb, so as to offer some space for people to get by. I stayed inside while Ch’Mrr went and fetched Mom from inside and to help with the luggage- She had a pair of suitcases, which made me chuff in amusement. After we got loaded, I made a few additional introductions.

“Mom, our pilot is Na’Menth, and our co-pilot/engineer is Na’Meel, both of the Sn’rrth clan. The third is my mentor, T’Grlf of the clan Kar’rrthht. You already know the other two, so I’ll shut up and hand things over to Sh’’Meral.” The fact that I was still in full-morph was a minor shock to her, but mom recovered rather quickly, and Sh’Meral helped her to a seat as we returned to the lot where we landed, and went airborne. Once we got to cruising altitude, Sh’Meral offered to check on Mother, who was already reaching for the small oxygen set she had brought with for her asthma. I ‘pathed to Sh’Meral if she needed any assistance from me, and got a short {no} in reply. I shrugged, and waited for the inevitable.

About half an hour I got what could only be described as a ‘ping’ via telepathy- probably to see if I was still awake or not. I was, primarily because I was talking to T’Grlf about the WorldNet project. “I think we should send RFPs to all three companies, master- All three are well versed in radio design, two of the three market directly or indirectly to the consumer market at large, and the third would probably be highly interested in breaking into the market this would create. We’ll see who comes out the best and- hang on.”

I got to my feet, and gently pawed to the closed doorway of the rear sleeping quarters. Extending a single claw, I tapped on the door, and it immediately opened. Sh’Meral and Mother were sitting and chatting. Mother was looking a lot better, and I glanced at them both in mock anger. “OK you two- spill it. what’s going on back here?”

After they both stopped chuckling, Sh’Meral informed me that she had found the cause to Mother’s asthma and cured it- It seems that she had picked up some sort of fungal infection that caused the problem, and that it had been mis-diagnosed all this time. “One of the trade planets we visited had a similar problem with their population- They were most grateful for the medical advances and other assistance we gave them as part of the uplift. It is most sad that one of their factions turned against us as we were about to welcome the entire world to the trading group, and started a very ill-advised war which they lost.”

I nodded sagely, her memories of the attack which left her an orphan flashing through my mind unbidden. I blinked to clear those unhappy thoughts, and tried a new tactic. “I have been arguing with T’Grlf about how the corporation ought to handle the WorldNet project. While we’ve decided to license the chip design, we’ve not agreed on how and to whom we are licensing to at this point. Plus, it all hinges on how well the prototype works on this field test. We will also have to use your satellite grid until we get our own built and deployed, and that’s going to take a lot more capital than anyone thinks at this stage.”

Sh’Meral looked at me, put her paw on my head, and started scratching to calm me down a bit. “You, my fuzzy friend, are getting far ahead of yourself. As long as the bridging computer is still working back at your house, it should be fine. As far as the money required, building the replacement comm grid will be self-paid- If I remember correctly, the design of the grid’s satellites was also part of the package I sent, and those can be lofted by just about anything spaceworthy. Even your own country’s retired space shuttle craft could put half of them in orbit by itself.”

The scratching was having it’s effect- I was just starting to tune her out when Mom jumped in. “So, why the four feet?” The scratching abruptly stopped, and I pathed to Sh’Meral [ _I_ _’ll handle this._ ] “Well, I could lie and say it was a lost bet, but I can’t lie in this form. I’m pulling a fast one on a certain government agency that’s been a pain in my tail for the past three months, and fulfilling my duties as a clan member to protect our honor. The official story is that the Ambassador was given a tiger which looks suspiciously like me by an anonymous donor as a gesture of good-will during the fallout from that news article.”

Mom nodded. “I saw the response to that article- very effective, if I must say so. Unfortunately, as you found out, not everyone in this world is level headed.”

Sh’Meral nodded gravely. “That is why your son spends a good amount of time in this form, or his hybrid form- he has certain abilities and skills that he can not access otherwise to defend himself, or his clan members.” I added mom to the mental list of people to mind-wipe if the time ever came when I saw her nod. I sighed, and finished.

“The other reason why I prefer this and my hybrid form is that it allows me to focus better, and with less frustration. You know how legendary my temper is, and this form just mellows me out by a huge amount. My hybrid form, not so much, but it’s a start. I’m assuming this answers your question?”

Seeing mom nod and smile made my day, and it was about 10 minutes later that Ch’Mrr came in and asked us to return to our seats as we were approaching the suburb were my brother lived. We had scheduled the visit to my brother for the evening before the official visit the next day, and we had offered to take him and his entire family out for dinner. We ended up landing in another parking lot, this time of one of the local grocery stores. While the shuttlecraft had provisions for food, Sh’Meral asked if we could go in and see what they had. I suggested the personal assistant gambit, and she agreed. I went into the back room, shifted up to 90% human form, put on what I called my ‘standard’ outfit I wore when on an outing with tigereans- loose fitting ‘docker’ style pants, an undershirt with a button-down shirt over it, and a stunner with a couple extra power cells in a concealed holster. A badge carrying both the official crest of the tigerean empire and my clan went on my belt finished the look of a human security liaison (my official title on these outings).

Sh’Meral poked her head in as I was finishing tying my boots to see how much longer I was going to take. As I came out, I saw Na’Meel showing Mother a map of where we had landed, and she was planning how to get to my brother’s house from here via standard roads. “Well, are we all ready?” I asked, and everyone nodded. Na’Meel and Na’Menth stated they would stay behind and pull security duty, and also do some light maintenance items on the shuttle while we were inside. T’Grlf and Ch’Mrr were dressed in their version of ‘street’ clothes, along with Sh’Meral. I leaned over to Mother and told her what the scoop was as we walked to the store and the circus began.

Fortunately, this trip went a lot better then the previous outing, and we found ourselves with a couple bags of various snacks, drinks, and candy of all things when we got back out to the shuttle. Fortunately, their biology allowed them to eat chocolate (unlike myself in hybrid or full forms!) and the M&M candies were a hit with them. We all piled back into the shuttle, and headed off to a small hot dog place for lunch, although we were all certain that the shuttle wouldn’t fit in their parking lot. After that, we drove over to the hotel and checked in.

We decided that it was going to be a bit of a hassle with just the shuttle, so we found a nice empty corner of the lot, blocked it with the shuttle and a well-placed distortion field, and I opened a gate back to the embassy. Stepping through, I dug out the keys to the maintenance yard, pulled the liberty out from its parking space, and drove it through. After getting it and the shuttle situated, Ch’Mrr, Sh’Meral, myself, and Mother got ready, (this involved formal wear for the first two, over my objections) and we headed off to my brother’s barn-shaped house and garage around 4:30 local time.

As we pulled into the parking lot next to the old barn, I saw his grandmother’s car was there. Hoo boy, this is going to be... interesting. I gave Mom a knowing glance, and as the liberty came to a quiet halt in the parking area, the garage door opened for us. Sure enough, there she was, with my sister n law and the kids. My brother was not quite home, but was en route, so we sat in the jeep for a few minutes until his truck pulled in.

While I had called him and told him our approximate time, I had not told him what we would be arriving in, or necessarily who my additional friends were. The sight of a blue Jeep liberty with diplomatic plates and the words “Tigerean embassy- official use only” in elegant _trrth_ script and English painted on it, with myself, Mother, Ch’Mrr and the Ambassador standing next to it was something that gave him cause to come to a complete and utter stop in the driveway and get out and look. As he walked up to meet us. “You told me you had met some friends- talk about an understatement!”

It was a couple of hours later that found the six of us in a reasonably decent mexican restaurant, and I watched in amusement as Ch’Mrr and Sh’Meral was introduced to salsa and spicy foods. Sh’Meral was ok with the mild spice from the pico de gao, but Ch’Mrr... well, we had to stop him from _drinking_ the hot sauce, despite his insistence on it tasting quite good. Both of them took this opportunity to also get more ~~blackmail material~~ embarrassing anecdotes from my younger and less responsible years. My sister in law, was a bit on the chilly side, and really didn’t say a whole lot to either of them or me, which troubled me a bit as the night wore on. Unfortunately, things came to a head when Sh’Meral started asking her questions about how they met, and life in general. Fortunately, Sh’Meral knew exactly when to back off, and the dinner finished up shortly afterwards. I insisted on paying, much to my brother’s annoyance, and the ride back to the hotel was silent on all parts.

My mood had been getting progressively darker since I noticed what my sister in law was doing, which Sh’Meral noticed and finally confronted me with as we were spooning in the master suite. “What’s wrong?” she asked me.

I sighed, shuffled around a bit to get comfortable, and put the top of my head on hers. “I think that went about as well as could be expected, all things considered. I knew that she didn’t like us, let along you and me together, but I didn’t expect her reaction to be that bad. I didn’t expect her to snub mother like that, though- That was uncalled for.”

I felt Sh’Meral nod her head against mine, when I heard a knock on the suite’s outer door. I took a sniff, and was surprised that I recognized it right away. Ch’Mrr had gotten to the door before we did, and we heard at least his side of the conversation. “Who is it- Oh. Please, come in and sit. They should be out shortly if I know them as well as I remember.”

Sh’Meral had slipped into a tunic, and I decided to just play the cards I had and stayed in full-morph as she opened the door and came into the main room to talk to my brother about what happened. As I entered the room, my brother had taken the seat offered by Ch’Mrr, and he went over to the small wet bar to get some water. Sh’Meral started right in.

“I take it you are here to discuss what happened with your half-brother. It is something that has troubled his mind during the entire trip back here from the restaurant, and although he was silent during the trip home, I think he needs to discuss it with you as well.”

Ch’Mrr handed glasses of water with straws to Sh’Meral and my brother, and he set the bowl down in front of me with a noxious grin and twitching ears. I sighed, glared back at him, and said, “I’ll be just a moment- my throat’s a bit dry.” As I started lapping up the water, I glanced up to where my brother was sitting. The look on his face almost made me choke- we had neglected to tell him what I really was, and to have a full size Siberian tiger start talking to you in your brother’s voice must have certainly derailed his train of thought pretty decently. I’ll admit that he recovered pretty quickly, though. He started talking as Ch’Mrr went to get the door again for Mother.

“That’s... really you? I don’t believe it. This must be some sort of trick or something.” Mom replied pretty quickly as Ch’Mrr closed the door. “Yep, that’s him. Although why he’s lapping up water like that is beyond me.”

I had finished up and had licked the extra droplets off my muzzle. “Blame Ch’Mrr. He seemed to think this was a pretty decent practical joke. It’s sort of funny, if you stop to think about it. In any case- Yes, this really is me. This happened to me back in May, and I’ve gained the ability to go from almost fully human to this form. There are a few other things that I’ve learned, but I’m not exactly at liberty to tell at the moment. I was lucky in that most people that this happens to either die in strange accidents, or just plain disappear, or wind up in some hospital drugged out of their senses. Sh’Meral happened to find me before the government did, and made sure that I did not go crazy that first time. We’ve gotten to know each other quite well in the intervening months, and as I’ve been initiated into their clan, both Sh’Meral and Ch’’Mrr wanted to meet what living family I have left.”

Ch’Mrr took over as he swapped my bowl for cup with large loops that I could grasp with my paws, with a holder for a straw on it. “As I am the Elder of the Clan Sn’rrth, one of my duties is to get to know the families, or family histories in our case, of newly joined members. My clan is made up largely of those who have no relatives to protect or care for them- survivors from accidents, battles, or other mishaps. On the occasion that we have a member join or initiated into the clan that still has living family, either myself or one of the other elders makes a point to visit them, to get to know them.”

Sh’meral continued. “In addition, it is part of our culture that before any sort of mating ritual or ceremony can be performed, that all the immediate family see the couple to be mated. My family was killed in the battle of Arctous IV when the inhabitants that we had uplifted there rebelled, destroying our monitoring station and crippling our trade ship. Your brother still has living family, so we must honor our culture. We also wish to learn more about your people as well, which is why we are touring several of the museums and other examples of culture, history, and technology, along with visiting the other uplift groups to see what progress has been made.”

I had finished my drink, and finished the line of thought to its conclusion. “So, now you know the family secret, and can probably draw the rest of the picture from what these two excellent companions of mine have stated. What we’d like to know is what happened at dinner with your wife. While I realize that there are very few in the country that would willingly approve of whom I’m presently hanging out with, there was no reason for her to snub mother like that, especially considering that she was perfectly fine with us the last time we visited a couple years ago.”

I looked over at Mother, who was nodding her head. Sh’Meral reached down and started scratching behind my ears as I continued. “I would have thought that getting to meet the ambassador to another world would have been something exciting- the kids certainly seemed to enjoy it.”

My brother looked at me as I paused, and he broke in before I had a chance to continue further. “It would please you to hear that I bring her apologies, then- She would bring them herself, but had to put the kids in bed. We had a discussion as well, and we both agreed that she acted a bit... pretentious.”

Sh’meral stopped scratching my head for a moment. “You may want to inform her that, despite our apparent love for ceremony and pomp, that we are in reality a very practical people. To mis-quote a phrase from one of your movies, ‘we are naught but humble folk.’ The only reason why we have the ceremony and pomp is because it is part of the way we have been uplifting other worlds for in excess of four thousand of your years. In any case, the offer I made before dinner still stands- your family are welcome to join us tomorrow as we tour the museums in downtown.”

There was not much more to say- We finished things up with me ducking into the bedroom to throw on some pants and a shirt after shifting back to human, and demonstrating my shifting abilities to my brother. While I think he was still in shock a bit from my revelation, I think that he would ultimately accept what had happened to one of the few siblings he had. His wife, on the other paw, I was not certain about, so I took a minor precaution of putting a tracer spell on him while I was in hybrid so that if the LCA came for him, I would at least get a few moments time to get him and the rest of my family. And as much as I hated tinkering with his mind, I made sure that he was incapable of telling anyone outside of people I had already told what I truly was.

I spent about twenty minutes after he left playing around and testing the WorldNet link, which worked as well as if it was sitting in the same room as the Internet bridge. I also tried the voice channel as well; while I didn’t have an analog phone line sitting at home, I did have code on the bridge to interface with a couple VoIP providers. I figured for a test that would work, but for long term, we’d have to either become a VoIP provider ourselves, or work with the telcos for dialtone access. My final thought that night as I snuggled with the two fuzzy creatures at my side was _At least it didn_ _’t go as bad as I thought it might have- there’ still some hope_.

**October 13th**

The next morning had me relegated to putting the jeep back in the maintenance yard back at the embassy before breakfast. After that, we all piled into the shuttle and drove over to the barn and picked up my brother’s family. I had shifted human at least, and was dressed as I was before. With my brother and the shuttle’’s navigation system, we managed to find the RV parking that we had reserved for our museum tour. Sh’Meral had decided that the museum tour would be an informal one, so we were all dressed in street clothes as we left the parking area and started to the museum of Science and industry. We did look pretty intimidating as a group- five Tigereans and six humans, two of which were children- and we got plenty of attention as we walked from the parking area to the old main entrance of the museum. My brother leaned over to me and asked why we were heading to this entrance. I grinned and said nothing. We were met by one of the staff members who welcomed us and started on our private guided tour. After the shock wore off his face, I leaned over to him and said, “It’s amazing what one can get when one is getting tickets for a foreign dignitary and her entourage.”

As the private tour ended, we found that we still had quite a bit of time to kill, so we walked over to the Sears tower and went up to the observation deck. After spending a bit of time there, we walked over to the Navy Pier and had a relaxing lunch and watched the world gawk back at us. It wasn’t all roses and happiness, however. We were waiting for the elevator to the Skydeck at the Sears tower when we were approached by a pair of Chicago police officers, whom informed us that they had been assigned by the mayor to follow us around and make sure that we were not accosted or mugged. While the latter was highly unlikely (Ch’Mrr and I chuckled when they told us that), it was appreciated, and although the police insisted that we did not need to do anything special for them, we felt obliged to pay for their lunch out at the pier. Pretty soon, it was time to head back, so we all walked back to the parking lot where we had left the shuttle, and thanked the officers for their time. Fortunately, no one had attempted to try anything foolish to the shuttle (it’s defenses were... not as lenient as we would be, if it was tampered with) and we left downtown without incident.

We managed to get back to the hotel without incident, and decided to just order pizza instead of trying to finagle another restaurant- this way, T’Grlf and the rest of the crew didn’t feel left out. (I was approached by them while in the museum about this little problem, which prompted an apology from me for my ignorance.) The rest of the night was spent with chit-chat, a demo (by me) of the prototype Worldnet system and how it was going to finally make a globally unified data and voice network work and be cost effective at the same time, and an outsider’s view of what the tigereans wanted to accomplish with the uplift in general, courtesy of my brother, sister in law, and mother. My brother and sister in law ended up leaving around 8 pm, in order to put the kids to sleep and get rest for work the next day. Mom called it a night as well, and we went to bed shortly after.

**October 14th**

The next morning had the Ambassador (and by extension everyone else) getting up early and getting things set up for the uplift checkpoint meeting in the hotel’s conference room. I got to meet the mid-west team members, and compare notes with this group, as they were working on duplicating the power converter and iterations in various sizes using earth materials and techniques. They were impressed by the prototype worldnet link, and we did some networking in regards to manufacturers and their capacity to fabricate the parts we both needed for our projects.

After the meeting ended, we checked out and took off for a small suburb outside of Pittsburgh, PA for our next stop. It was a reasonably short trip- two hours in the shuttle got us to the outskirts of the suburb where my grandmother lived, and another 20 minutes had us parked in the lot of the nursing home she had been moved to as her health started to decline.

While old age had taken its toll on her body, Grandma was absolutely delighted to see me, and was very energetic and active for her 90+ years. We all met in the common room, and talked for a good couple hours about just about everything. It got to be time for her meds, so we talked a bit more as she was wheeled back into her room by the nurse. We waited out in the hallway, and about fifteen minutes later the nurse let us back in, and asked that we let him or one of the other staff know when we were leaving.

As we went in, she waved for us to all come in closer. “Please, come in, and close the door. This is not to leave the room.” I felt Sh’Meral weave a distortion field around the room, and I saw Grandma smile. “That’s a very tidy spellweave, miss. Hardly noticed it. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I want to talk about what you are going to do for humanity.” She pointed a finger at me. “But first, show me your power, grandson.”

I looked at her, and shrugged. I had already done a ten percent shift before leaving the shuttle on general principles, so I flash-shifted into full form. I don’t normally do it, because it’s way too flashy for anything but stage magic, but it does allow me to keep my clothing on, or shape the clothing to match whatever form I‘m shifting to.

We spent another 30 minutes or so discussing what I really was, which was when I found that Grandmother was the most powerful seer of her generation. The only real interruption we had was the Archmage teleporting in under a cloak, which I barely felt, but apparently Grandma saw right through and had a few nasty words on the side for him. She told us that it was pretty much time to go, and gave each of us a large brown envelope that was sealed. “I’ve done my last batch of seeing that I’ll ever do, and it was for all of you. Do not open them until you are home”. She then told us that she loved us, and bid us all good luck and a safe trip home. “I need to talk with the Archmage privately for a moment or two, so out you go.”

The Archmage created his own distortion bubble inside of Sh’Meral’s, and she dis-spelled hers as we left the room. We went by the nurse station on the way out and let them know we were leaving, and said our farewells. It was a somber crew that night at the hotel, and in the morning we continued to Boston and met with the uplift team from MIT. The MIT folks were just awesome with what they were able to do with the sample workstations- they had built up a prototype sidecar system that acted as a full network, power, and protocol translator to allow not only file and print access, but remote control, and a fair number of other things, some of which were not quite what the Tigereans had in mind for their workstations.

What they didn’t have, however, was the ability to fully mass produce the hardware for the systems. I did some wheeling and dealing, and in exchange for letting them get in on the worldnet project (I was still shocked and amazed that they _wanted_ to develop the back end system for it!), I was given a copy of the system spec list and one of the five demo machines, and was asked to poke the contacts I knew about getting about a hundred or two of the machines built. All in all, it was a very productive meeting.

**October 16th**

While the trip home had been quite uneventful, the envelopes that Grandma gave everyone proved otherwise. Mom had opened her envelope up Saturday morning, and I received the call about fifteen minutes afterwards. I understood just enough between the sobs to know that something major had happened, and scared the hell out of Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr by grabbing them, the packet containing our envelopes, and teleported the three of us directly to Mom’s place. It was a large enough surge that I was absolutely certain that the Archmage would track me down, and we had just finished calming mother down when he knocked on the front door. As I let him in, he apologized for being late.

“I meant to arrive earlier to soften the blow, but prediction is a very tricky thing even for seers, which I am not. In any case, the rest of the envelopes need to be opened and read now.”

I handed out the envelopes, opened mine, and started reading. My envelope consisted of a one page letter, a cd containing the family history, and two checks labeled “Startup capital” and “Inheritance”. The letter merely explained the two checks, the CD, and the phrase “follow your instincts.” Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr absolutely refused to divulge what their letters said, but Mother’s letter, and the Archmage’s addition, pretty much said it: the LCA had paid Grandmother a visit after we had left, and tried to force her to reveal things. This backfired badly on the agents, and caused not only her death, but their own as well- as the archmage explained it, there was a horrible freeway accident as the two agents were heading back to the office which claimed their lives.

I then learned why seers are both exceptionally rare, and generally lived in seclusion: In the act of predicting the future, their power changes the future to reflect what they’ve predicted. With her death, she put a mark of doom on the LCA itself- it’s time would soon be over. Mother’s letter had stated “By the time you read this, I will have passed on. Do not mourn the death of the seer who helped end three wars and prevented three more from ever occurring, but celebrate the dawn of a new era for humanity.”

We ended up spending a couple hours discussing the family history, and Mom mentioned that we should visit my uncle the next day. He was apparently ok with it, as she had called him after we had dropped her off the day before, so we made arrangements to meet her there Sunday after noon. We got assurances that she’d be ok, and I ‘ported the three of us back to the office and got back to the mound of paperwork that had built up while we were out.

**October 17th**

“Are you sure we’ll be ok?” Ch’Mrr had one of his severe looks on his muzzle as I pulled up to my uncle’s house. The neighborhood had gone into a slow decline in the years after we had left, and I knew that Ch’Mrr was in a higher than normal state of awareness. Sh’Meral looked at me with a hint of worry in her eyes, and I felt myself step up, both mentally and physically. I got the jeep parked behind mother’s car and shut down the drive system. I had noticed that a good chunk of my extended family was also there as well, so that made me feel only marginally better.

“We’ll be fine, I’ve got a good handle on things.” I stepped out of the jeep, closed the driver’s door, and opened the back door to let Sh’Meral out as Ch’Mrr got out of the passenger rear door and came around after a quick visual sweep. I led the way up to the door as usual, and Mom let us in after telling us that my uncle was out back working on one of the cars. The dog gave me the usual treatment mostly- she knew I was still me, but with a few added features. My two companions, however, she sniffed a bit, gave me this look like ‘you’re putting me on, right?’, and backed off.

I got even more interesting reactions from my extended family as my friends entered the house- Although mom had warned them ahead of time as to who and what my friends were, I don’t think they were fully prepared for reality. My cousin’s wife didn’t even blink, my cousin was largely unreadable (although even my non-heightened senses told me _something_ was up), his son was marginally less hostile to me, only because I figured he was intimidated by the 1/4 ton of sentient carnivores I had brought with me, and my uncle... well, even at the best of times, he was a nightmare for me to read, but this was a wall that said _nothing_ when he came in from the garage. We found places to sit or kneel, and I made introductions all around. As the family started to question Sh’Meral, I went into the kitchen to get glasses of water.

Since my senses were already enhanced by default, I cautiously took in a breath through my nose to sense what I could sense. I rarely did this because even though I had been like this for the better part of five months, It still took a bit to really process that volume of information while I was in human form- my poor human brain just wasn’t set up for it, really. Besides the still over-powering scent of tobacco and various automotive and metalworking chemicals, I caught the old lingering smell of death and decay, the pungent aroma of fear and worry from my cousin’s son, the same but with a hint of anger from my cousin himself, and a sense of tired resignation from my uncle with traces of malevolence from something that we had thought was completely gone. Fortunately, no one had seen me zone out a bit as I took all the information in, and I came back shortly with the glasses of water.

My family questioned Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr for about a half an hour, during which I helped them fill in some more cultural gaps and pick my memories for reference material for the colloquialisms they hadn’t heard. I pretty much studied everyone’s emotional reactions and states. While I didn’t let on that I was worried, I did notice that my cousin’s underlying anger had grown ever so slightly, now that I was actively sensing it. My uncle was just plain tired, as it turned out- surviving cancer and a liver transplant tends to ruin one’s endurance. Everyone else was pretty much normal. The show got a bit more entertaining when the girls showed up, along with my cousin’s ex, who was still reasonably decent friends of the family. They had noticed the jeep parked out front, and had correctly guessed who my friends were. I turned over to look at Sh’Meral with a mock seriousness in my voice and a twinkle in my eye.

“You insisted we bring the marked jeep, and not one of the suburbans. Did you not figure that people would know who was in it? It’s only been on TV, what, five times since I finished converting it?”

This earned me an elbow and nasty looks from Mom, who had missed my signals completely, and Sh’Meral replied in kind, tail twitching madly. “Well, there wasn’t room in that tiny car of yours, and the rules for taking out one of the surburbans are different anyhow. We just **had** to take the jeep.”

We looked at each other for a couple seconds to see what the rest of the family would do, and when it was obvious that no one was going to say anything, the grin I had been trying to suppress made its appearance along with hers, and I started to chuckle. My cousin’s wife didn’t get the joke. “What’s so funny?”

I stopped chuckling to explain, while Sh’Meral kept right on with her repeated _chuff_ noises. “It’s a joke- we know just how obvious the jeep is, I was just teasing her about it. Plus, every mile we put on it is another mile of road testing the powertrain conversion I designed and installed on it. If we wanted subtle or even more overt, we have ways of doing that as well.”

This led to a short discussion on just what I did to the jeep, and I ended up pulling a couple of the flyers I kept with me out which we had prepared. While I’m not completely certain, I think my uncle was pleased with how I did the conversion. My cousin, however, was something else. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, otherwise I would have cornered him on what was making him angry. We said our goodbyes, and headed toward home.

**October 21st**

The last person that Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr wanted to meet was also the hardest to track down- It was almost as if my father didn’t want me to find him. Indeed, my resources were few, but Ch’Mrr had told me that it would not be a problem. We ended up driving out there, which was odd, but Ch’Mrr said that it was what we needed to do. Apparently, the airspace was too crowded for the shuttle, so we loaded up the jeep and took a nice long drive. Ch’Mrr was riding shotgun and had something that looked a lot like a GPS with him that he constantly fiddled with, while Sh’Meral pretty much watched out the window, or sang along with the music they were playing (which was actually pretty good, if you understood _trrth_ or primal. The pacing of the drums was also enough that I didn’t fall sleep to it, which was really good because I did not want to crash this thing at freeway speeds).

We eventually pulled into one of the nicer hotels and got one of the suites for the night, and resumed driving in the morning. It was about mid-morning when Ch’Mrr guided me to a small office complex, and before we went in, the Ambassador and Ch’Mrr cautioned me to stay in the background and stay silent; they would do all the talking. While I was annoyed at this, I understood their reasons. I had shifted into full hybrid for this, and I wore for the first time the armor I had spent a weekend constructing. Ch’Mrr was first in the door, followed by the Ambassador and myself as rear guard. Ch’Mrr went right up to the receptionist and asked for my father by his full legal name, in his bad accent. She took a few seconds to recover, and then asked why. The Ambassador said that she had some terrible news regarding his mother, and that it was considered traditional within Tigerean society to hand-carry the news to all relatives. The receptionist dialed an extension, and informed us that he would be up shortly.

It was a few minutes before he came from the back door. I could sense a very angry and hostile person storming up to meet us. He slammed the door open and went to say something he would have probably regretted, but managed to catch himself when he caught sight of us. “Who are you and what do you have to do with- Oh, my. I heard about my mother’s death three days ago. Do you know what happened?”

Ch’Mrr nodded slowly and the Ambassador said, “Yes, but we are not at liberty to explain all the details. Suffice to say that this world is less bright now that she is gone. We would like to talk, however, about your son. Do you have a moment, and an office where we can talk privately?

Confused, he said “Which one? Several of them are dead. Please, follow me.”

As he led the way back to what appeared to be a conference room, the Ambassador explained that they had worked with one of his sons earlier in the year, and she wished to meet his family to return the honor that he had freely given them. As we entered the conference room and closed the door, I took up guard near the door as my father took a seat. He asked, “Which one of my sons did this?”

Ch’Mrr said nothing, but the Ambassador slid a sealed envelope over to him. “I was instructed to give this to you by your mother, whom I met the day before her passing. My instructions are also to remain here and make sure you read it, and leave afterwards.”

We watched as he opened the envelope and read the top-most sheet of paper. As his eyes went wide, Sh’Meral turned around to me. I opened the door and led my companions back out to the car. As Ch’Mrr quietly closed the door to the conference room, I heard a faint sob coming from the room.

The trip back to the hotel was... quiet. After we got in, I asked Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr if they knew what was printed on the letter. Ch’Mrr ordered food from room service, and then opened the stash of Tigerean spirits from a case he had packed for the trip. “I will explain, as I was requested by your grandmother if you asked us. But first, I think we all need something to drink after that, and some food.”

The food arrived about twenty minutes later, by which time we were all slightly tipsy from the drinks. After we ate, Ch’Mrr explained everything. “Both myself and Sh’Meral were tasked by your grandmother with delivering the letter, and bringing you along to see his reaction. I was given the addresses, and Sh’Meral was given the envelope. The reasons for the road trip were partly true- Your FAA has ‘requested’ that we stay out of California airspace. I know that you wanted to take the jeep on a longer trip to test its endurance and behavior at freeway speeds. Finally, I think that the three of us need some additional time alone and away from people for... additional mutual discovery, as it were. As to the contents of the letter, it contained a copy of your grandmother’s last will and testament, and a cover letter to your father explaining why he was written out of the will.”

As I sat there dumbfounded, Sh’Meral went over to her luggage and handed me a sealed envelope. “And now I am to give you this, in the event that you do not believe us.”

As I was still in hybrid, I unsheathed on of the built-in letter openers on my paw, opened the letter, and started reading the cover letter to the will it contained. The letter said simply “Trust your future mates- Here’s the will to prove it.”

As I put the letter down, I looked at my two furry companions that I had spent nearly six months with. Sh’Meral’s mind I mostly knew already, but I had only touched Ch’Mrr’s briefly. This was corrected overnight, and by the time we checked out the next morning we affirmed that we loved each other about as much as anyone else could. The drive back was more relaxed, and I found that they shared my eclectic taste in music as they got exposed to the collection on my media player.

**Author's Note:**

> So, the very first segment in this chapter was actually the first one written in the entire thing. I mean, how does one introduce one's family to an alien that you are intending to life-bond to?


End file.
